Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb

The year is 1935 and you find yourself running from evil Nazi’s and the Asian
underworld while trying to keep them away from ancient artifacts that could
hold enormous power… falling into the wrong hands is bad news for everyone.
Welcome to the world of Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb.
There are 10 levels to explore, puzzles, and trap mechanics to master. In your
efforts to claim and protect the thirty or so artifacts, you will travel to
exotic locations like Ceylon, Istanbul, Prague, Hong Kong,
and many more to face countless and varied enemies. In Indiana Jones and the
Emperor’s Tomb you will engage in hand-to-hand combat and have an array of weapons
at your disposal. So let’s go see what kind of trouble we can get our whip-snapping
hero into. . .

At the
start of the title you enter your name, normally this would not be worthy of
a mention in my reviews but since there is no manual save I though it might
be important, all game saves are done automatically at certain intervals in
the game. Moving on to more gameplay elements, you begin your journey in Ceylon,
where you’ll learn the basics of navigating Indy and using his whip for more
than a swift smack on the ass (much more actually). After
you’ve learned the ropes a bit you can progress into the heart of the game,
comprised of 10 levels throughout the world. Each level is split into different
areas, or sections, all of which are filled with Nazis and
Asian underground baddies making your job more interesting.

Indiana
Jones and the Emperors Tomb is a linear based game, meaning in order to get
to point C from point A, you’ll need to pass through point B. The main goal
at hand is to collect all thirty ancient artifacts and find the Emperors Tomb
(where the main and mystifying artifact resides, the Heart of the Dragon),
in order to accomplish this you’ll need to fend off the enemies as well as search
for hidden areas and maneuver around different obstacles and puzzles. The puzzles
presented to you are fairly simplistic, but not to the degree of being pointless.
Learning such moves as walking, running, jumping, and action oriented moves
are basic, but you will need to learn more complex maneuvers as well. Shimmy,
wall hug, swim, roll, whip swing, rope swing and setting explosives are crucial
to your well being, and make sure you don’t blow yourself up setting those explosives.

Hand
to hand combat is important as there are times when ammunition for your Luger,
Tommy Gun, Pistol, or whatever else you may pick up runs short. There is
close combat where you press your primary attack button (A),
or your secondary attack (X), which are your right and left fists, these actions
can also be used to kick an enemy while he’s down! You will
use 3 button attacks for the most part, for example X, X, X, or A, A, A – the
moves are simple to learn but varied in presentation so the action rarely gets
stale. X and A simultaneously will break you free from an enemies grapple. Besides
close combat there is also ranged combat through the use of your whip, pistol,
or the leg of a table you just shattered! In fact, many objects in the
game can be used during your adventure. The options are there, if you have a
Nazi that’s just looking for a beat down you could do one of many things; pull
out your rifle or pistol and shoot the hell out of him, throw a grenade and
blow the hell out of it, use a shattered bottle to stab the hell out of him,
whip the hell out of him . . . you get my point! By the way, the ranged
weapons are basically auto-aim, so targeting the enemy is just a matter of facing
in their direction.

As
you investigate the areas, icons appear on the screen to help you know exactly
what to do, for example, when you’re near a water fountain an icon will appear
indicating that you should fill up your canteen with water.
The water serves to refill your health meter. Since there are water fountains
strategically placed throughout the levels running ‘dry‘ on health
is seldom a major concern as long as you keep a close watch on your surroundings.
Other icons alert you, or hint to different things, such as using your whip
to swing across a crevice, using you machete to cut through a door overgrown
with vines, slide down a zip line, look around, push or pull something or pick
up an item.

The
overall feel of the Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb is hard to put a finger
on. Sometimes the action is fast and furious, sometimes it simply flows, but
it never becomes boring or stale. The storyline keeps you into the game from
start to finish, and you do feel as if you were playing out what you had seen
in the movies or on TV so many years ago, which means they made excellent use
of the Indiana Jones license during the creation of the game. Although there
are many different enemies, there is Mei Yung, a sexy cohort who helps
Indy along the way and adds an extra spin or intrigue to the story. Most of
the combat is hand to hand and they did a great job at replicating Indiana Jones’
moves and style throughout the game.

While Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb is a fun game to play
and overall it looks great, it is not without it’s own technical issues that
given a bit more time in developers’ hands could have been eliminated. There
are far too many clipping issues, and a bit of a drop in framerate from time
to time, not to mention a camera that doesn’t always want to work with you.
On a whole however these issues are minimal based on the end experience, you
just cannot deny you had a good time playing. Character animations
are done convincingly and the environments are varied and colorful for what
many may see as a jungle type atmosphere, there are often times where you are
in a city styled setting, underwater, or indoors.

The music composition is great and will certainly bring back a lot of memories.
Sitting at the movie theater, having a big soda and popcorn with butter and
all of the sudden you hear the theme for Indiana Jones. The music
just makes you think of adventure. The music in the game goes
well with the feel of the of the action and intensifies at different levels
of danger or importance. The ambient sounds are very realistic, the difference
when walking on wood, concrete, and grass all sound like they are supposed to.
The best sound is when you use the whip, especially when you get it around your
enemies’ neck and pull them towards you so you can smack them in the head.
Voice acting was done well and although we don’t hear Harrison Ford
as the voice of Indy, voice actor David Esch does an excellent job
of sounding just like him.

Indiana Jones And The Emperor’s Tomb has a decent replay value
since there are three different difficulty setting you can choose from, and
having unlockable goodies once you collect all of the artifacts will give you
the incentive to get everything you can. Single player action adventure games
do not normally have a superb replay value, The Emperor’s Tomb is no different,
but Indiana Jones fans will definitely get a kick out of the game, and newcomers
will no doubt enjoy the variety and the fun factor it has to offer.

Overall
Score: 8.9/10 [Not an Average] Highly
Recommended

It was a pleasure playing Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s
Tomb, it gave me a chance to reflect back on the days of my childhood a bit,
and reach inside to claim some of that adventure I may have lost over the years.
While the graphics could have been touched up a bit for an Xbox title, the fun
factor and the level of variety in a game that kept my interest all the way
to the end was a nice surprise. I have a two fold recommendation. If you are
a fan of Indiana Jones, you should go pick this one up now. More casual adventure
types take a test run through a rental, and you make the call.

• Official
  Game Site
• LucasArts
• The Collective
• Indiana
  Jones And The Emperor’s Tomb Screenshots (Temporarily Unavailable, Sorry.)
• Indiana
  Jones And The Emperor’s Tomb Hints and Cheats
• Buy
  Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb
  from EB Games

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